


The Cure for Anything

by concernedlily



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-12
Updated: 2008-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-18 16:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concernedlily/pseuds/concernedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean worries about Andrea and Lucas Barr when Sam finds a possible haunting near the former Lake Manitoc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cure for Anything

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to soupytwist for sense-making and vesuvianite for de-Anglosizing and beta.

The cure for anything is salt water -- sweat, tears, or the sea.  
Isak Dinesen

 

Although Sam found the hunt, it was Dean who swung the car around to head there immediately, leaving behind the possible dryad infestation in Ohio.

It was something Sam had been keeping an eye on for a while, a series of tiny mentions on various Wisconsin news sites (as Dean put it) got his spidey-sense tingling. It had taken him a while to put together the place names that seemed almost-familiar; most of America sounded familiar to Sam and it took a while to distinguish between passed-through, interesting legend and a previous hunt. And then it had taken a couple of weeks after that to find all the information, put it together, work out that a pattern might be forming.

“It could be the same spirit as last time,” Dean said stubbornly. “We never found the body, we couldn't do the salt and burn.”

Sam sighed. “Okay, fine, we can't rule it out. But I just don't think it is, Dean. Peter Sweeney got his revenge already, and these deaths aren't even following the same pattern. I'm pretty sure it's more likely got something to do with the little fact that the whole town's been flooded out since we were there.”

“Just trying to make sure you cover all your angles, Sammy,” Dean said. He grinned out the driver's side window.

“If it's anything at all,” Sam went on, pretending Dean hadn't said anything. “It could be some really bad luck. It's just a lot of weird deaths, that's all.”

“Hey, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence...”

“Three times is enemy action,” Sam said wearily. “Yeah, I know.” He rubbed at the bridge of his nose uselessly. They were in southern Montana now, which meant another day or two to get to Lake Manitoc – or, the towns surrounding what had been Lake Manitoc and town and was now _really big_ Lake Manitoc – depending on how fast Dean went, which would depend on whether his gut was telling him the difference here was happenstance or enemy action. Dean's gut was pretty reliable on that sort of thing.

The town had hung on a little longer than the sheriff had suggested. Sam had reconstructed the progress of the spillway from newspapers and reports on population and real estate, tracking the town's slow death, losing a little ground every day to the encroaching waters rather than some Biblical flood. It was about four years now since the sheriff had told them his hometown had six months, and nearly three since the last homeowners had finally moved out and the town abandoned completely to the lake.

The deaths might have started immediately but Sam had only caught the strangeness with the last three deaths, a mother and her two grown children dying within weeks of each other, the latter's deaths each taking place just a day or two after the previous funeral. Then he'd painstakingly checked out the last three years of the local papers for all the nearby towns, and the bigger cities further afield, wherever the former residents of Lake Manitoc might have gone. He'd found them, heart sinking a little more with each short respectful obit of this woman or that man, in good health and good shape, not old enough to have died naturally, freak accidents and suicides, all of them listing the dead as having moved recently from Lake Manitoc.

None of them had been Andrea or Lucas Barr, up until now, but Dean was worried, had looked actually panicked for a second, although he hadn't mentioned their names since Sam put his research down in front of him and showed him the oddities; not statistically impossible but unlikely, he'd explained, and Dean had nodded and finished his pancakes and put them on a heading for Wisconsin.

They didn't have a number for Andrea. It had been lost on a cell phone that got wet or forgotten somewhere or one of the other misfortunes that tended to befall them in their daily life. Sam didn't mention to Dean that they didn't know how to find her or if she was even still in Wisconsin. Lake Manitoc had taken her husband and father and severely traumatised her son; Sam thought it pretty likely she'd taken the first opportunity to get away from it. But maybe she would've wanted to stay in an area she knew.

He drank the last disgusting gulp of warmish coffee and shuffled his photocopies and printouts and notes around on his lap. If there was a pattern here, not just horrible but ultimately random incidents, it'd be helpful if he could find it before they actually got to the place or thing that was causing them.

Dean chose to put his foot down and thirty-six hours later they were pulling into a motel in Valders, a town within easy range of where the dam had spilt over Lake Manitoc. The latest deaths hadn't happened there but there'd been several there that Sam thought might be part of the case, the most recent nearly a year ago.

They went out to eat and pick up some stuff, bandages and non-perishables for the trunk and the sleeping pills that worked for Dean, and then Sam suggested hitting the local library to see if they could dig up more information about the deaths.

He managed to find a more complete report to go with what he already had: just under a year ago, Alan Loviss had been hanging a painting when he'd fallen onto a glass coffee table that had shattered and caused fatal kidney injuries, killing him slowly. He'd been found dead by his wife when she came home from work a few hours later. Foul play had been suspected briefly, explaining the more extensive local reporting, but the inquest had quickly declared it just a tragic accident. The part that had caught Sam's attention was the fact that he hadn't had head injuries that might account for loss of consciousness and the kidney wounds, though painful, should have allowed him to call for help before he died. The fact that he hadn't had been attributed to shock. Maybe it had been.

By the time he'd found the reports and gone through the next month in the newspaper archives to make sure it hadn't come up again, Dean was engrossed in the local history section and Sam had to go drag him out. He liked reading about local folklore and sometimes they picked up an extra salt and burn in the area, just in case.

Sam reported the extra information he'd managed to find over dinner, concluding that he thought they needed to talk to the widow.

“A year ago?” Dean said, looking sceptically at Sam over the table. “Gonna be hard to get in there.”

“Yeah. I was thinking maybe insurance auditors? It shouldn't spook her, she should have had her payout already,” Sam said.

“Yeah, okay,” Dean said. He scowled. He still preferred not to have to wear a suit if he didn't have to.

“Good,” Sam said briskly. “So we'll go in the morning and then I thought maybe we could go and see – well, the lake, I guess. Where the town was.”

Dean fidgeted. “Yeah, maybe.”

Sam watched him for a minute. He tended to let Dean have his privacy, these days, but he was pretty sure he knew what this was about. “We don't have a reliable way to find them,” he said gently. “I can try to hack into some of the electoral registers for the area, but we don't even know she's still in the state.”

“I know,” Dean mumbled. He looked up, his gaze thoughtful and sympathetic. “You know, I don't think she would have gone far. Her whole family was there.”

“If she's around, we'll find her,” he assured Dean. He didn't know how, exactly, but if Dean felt so strongly about it, Sam would do it.

They'd already found a room, inappropriately Loch Ness Monster themed. There was a mural of Nessie on one wall, executed with more enthusiasm than skill. A stuffed toy sat on each of their beds.

Dean picked his up and sat it on the pillow at the head of the bed. “You think this is the universe giving us a hint?” he asked Sam.

Sam looked at the mural. The monster was giving a gap-toothed smile.

“No,” he said.

Getting their duffels out later he paused, feeling almost guilty, and (when he'd checked around that he was unobserved) propped up the false bottom. He quickly found what he was looking for and carried it in with him, setting it gingerly on top of his notes.

“What are you doing with that?” Dean said with some surprise when he noticed it.

Sam shrugged, feeling young and stupid. “I thought maybe there might be something in it. From last time.”

Of course Dean knew perfectly well that there wasn't. They'd been back on the road only a few weeks when they'd finished the previous hunt here. Sam had still been raw, grieving deeply and barely with his head on straight, desperate to find Dad, and it was before – well, it was before pretty much everything, when Dean still had Dad on that childhood pedestal. Neither of them would have dreamed of writing their own notes into Dad's journal, any more than it would have occurred to them to change the words of an exorcism in the middle of performing it.

Sam hadn't looked at it for years. It filled him with too many feelings he didn't particularly want to sort through, the guilt and grief and undefinable sorrow about too many things. Together, he and Dean were the hunters now his father had been, it was simple fact to say that, and he had his own resources and notes in carefully backed-up files on the laptop.

Still, it was obscurely comforting to rub his fingers over the worn leather cover, the bulging spine where Dad had added pages and pictures. When he was small it had served as his colouring book on a number of long journeys, when their dad had forgotten to get him anything else to play with and Dean was exhausted trying to keep him quiet, Dean watching him eagle-eyed to make sure he kept to the blank pages, still trying to protect him then from the truth of their lives. When they got wherever they were going he'd always taken out Sam's pages and stuck them up on the fridge or wall somewhere.

Sam knew the terrible things the journal was about now, intimately. But it was nice to remember it like that, or quiet times with his father once he'd taken over doing research for the hunts, John checking his work over, asking Sam his opinion on what he'd learnt and transferring the most important parts into the journal.

He opened it and flipped through the pages slowly. He passed over the painful beginning out of habit, the bit he always put out of his mind, where his dad had used it as a real journal for his feelings after their mother's death. When the hunter's journal started to rise out of the ashes of that life Sam could look at it with a professional eye, ignore the occasional bloodstain, remember his father in the man-to-man relationship they'd never really had time to actually achieve.

“Anything?” Dean said when Sam put the journal gently on the bedside table and laid down to go to sleep.

“No,” Sam said. “Night.”

He half-woke in the middle of the night to see Dean sitting by the window in a pool of light, his head bent over the journal, squinting and frowning a little, his hands turning the pages lovingly.

* * *

Edith Loviss was a fadedly pretty woman in her late forties or early fifties, cool and impeccably put-together, the sort of woman who took notice of IDs and probed unlikely stories. Sam nudged Dean slightly behind him and put on his best professional trust-me smile.

“An audit?” she said doubtfully. She gave them a flat stare.

“Yes,” Sam said. He lowered his smile to 'grave sympathy'. “We apologise for bringing up a difficult time for you, Mrs. Loviss. Procedure, you know. It's the company we're auditing, the cases were chosen at random, we don't intend to suggest irregularities in your particular situation.” He could feel Dean saving up an eyeroll behind him but he didn't mean to get the poor woman worried about her payout, even if she was giving them a haughty look like they'd just crawled out from under a rock and might leave something unpleasant on her floors.

“I suppose you'd best come in,” she said, holding the door open for them.

She was sufficiently polite to offer them coffee and bring through cookies, which Sam pre-emptively glared Dean off of. The house was very (if not excessively) clean, the décor tasteful and centred around one of those colours girls always had another name for apart from 'beige'. The sofa looked luxurious and felt hard. It was the same house where the husband had died. Sam couldn't imagine it. Of course he wouldn't have been able to stay in his and Jess' apartment, gutted as it was in the fire, but he didn't think he could have stood to in any case.

Sam flipped to a new page in his notebook and poised his pen over it. Next to him, Dean assumed an attentive expression.

“If we could just take you through finding your husband...” Sam said, keeping his voice low and compassionate.

She looked down at her lap. She still wore her wedding ring, Sam noticed, and although she didn't go so far as to fidget she touched it once, softly, before beginning to speak.

“Take your time,” Dean interjected, his voice holding a note of real kindness. He shifted, brushing Sam's shoulder briefly.

“Alan was doing some little jobs around the house,” she said. “I had asked him to hang a picture, and while doing so, he fell and landed on a coffee table with inlaid glass. It broke and inflicted fatal injuries. I arrived home some hours later, after work, and he was already dead.” Her voice was impersonal as she related the story; not because she didn't care, Sam was sure, but because she did, so much so that to be able to talk about her life she had to pretend it wasn't hers at all.

“Of course,” Sam said. That was what they already knew. “Mrs. Loviss, was there anything strange that you can think of, before your husband's death?”

“Anything strange?” she repeated. “I'm not sure I take your meaning.”

Sam glanced at Dean. This was always the awkward part, if the witness didn't pick up on the lead. “Just... anything you can think of, Ma'am. Noises in the house. Lights, dreams. Anything at all strange about the circumstances.”

“No,” she said flatly. “Alan was a careful man, but accidents happen.”

“Yes,” Sam muttered. “Where was your husband buried?”

She looked at him sharply. “He was cremated. May I ask the relevance of that question to your audit?”

“We like to cover absolutely everything now, so we don't have to bother you again,” Dean said hastily. “We never know what might be important later. That was what he wanted, cremation?”

She gave them an eyebrow that said she was onto them, and Dean slanted a look at Sam that warned him to be ready for a quick exit, but she answered. “Not exactly. Both Alan and I were born and brought up in the town of Lake Manitoc. You may be aware that the burial we had planned there is no longer possible.”

“You'd planned burials?” Sam said alertly. “You had a family plot?”

“No,” she said. “Alan's family had a plot once, I believe. But we were given a joint plot in the main town cemetery as a wedding gift.”

There was a beat. “As a wedding gift?” Dean said. There was a trace of barely contained humour in his voice and Sam could see from the way her expression went stormy that he wasn't the only one who'd caught it. He stood up hurriedly, grabbing Dean by the elbow and hauling him up too.

“Thank you very much for your time, Mrs. Loviss,” he said.

“Yeah, thanks,” Dean said.

“Of course,” she said, icily polite. She stood up and escorted them pretty obviously to the door.

“Mrs. Loviss,” Dean said, just at the threshold, turning back to her. He looked totally serious and Sam saw what he was going to ask just too late to head him off. “I knew a woman in Lake Manitoc, once. Andrea Barr. She was the sheriff's daughter and she had a son, Lucas. Do you know her?”

Mrs. Loviss looked at them both for a long moment. “No,” she said. “Good day.”

And the door closed firmly in their faces.

“You shouldn't have asked,” Sam said finally, once they were back in the car and Dean's tie was loose around his throat. “If she starts asking around...”

“Plenty of other towns we can work this case from,” Dean said dismissively, but his fingers tightened just slightly around the wheel. “She was there, I thought it was worth a go.”

“Okay,” Sam said. He looked down at his meagre notes.

They went back to the motel to change, Dean dropping his dress pants and jacket obliviously on the floor, then hit a diner for lunch. Then they drove out as near as they could get to the former town of Lake Manitoc.

The bypass road was still in the process of being built, Sam had found out, but they drove along towards the direction of the dam that had been allowed to fail, leaving the highways for access roads and countryside lanes. Sam fought the whole way with two large maps, the old one showing the town and an updated one predicting the road that would skirt the lake.

It was Dean who eventually said, “Here, I think.” He stopped the car at a scenic overlook of the lake, with a couple of picnic tables empty in the early winter chill. Sam folded his maps up. Dean's sense of direction was faultless, even here where anything he might have recognised was under fifty feet of water; if he said they were where the town had been, then they were.

They got out of the car and leaned up against the barrier. It looked natural enough, sloping down from the road, more of a dirt track now, to a gently lapping water's edge. The water was clear for the first few yards and then dropped off sharply to a near-black as the depth increased. It was backdropped against an unrelenting grey sky, clouds swarming over the whole horizon. Sam felt a shudder go down his spine and suppressed the urge to look around suspiciously. Nobody had been killed actually on or near the lake; he wasn't spooked, just saddened by the knowledge that someplace he remembered as a pretty, vibrant little town, was drowned under the lake.

For a second he squinted at the lake, imagining he could see the buildings under there, resting blue-lit and lonely, rotting quietly away under the waves. Or had everything been demolished first? He hadn't been able to find much on the actual loss of the town; it wasn't exactly a victory for the authorities, letting a town go like that, and it hadn't been well publicised.

Dean's face was smooth and untroubled as he looked out over the lake but he was rhythmically clenching his fist around the sturdy barrier and letting go. Sam wondered what he was thinking, whether he was remembering that day when he saved Lucas from the ghost under the water, or if he was worrying about where Lucas and his mother were now.

Sam stared back out over the water, trying to find the lake beautiful instead of haunting in its forested setting, waiting for Dean to work out... whatever it was he was working out.

“Okay,” Dean said finally. He turned around decisively and leaned against the barrier, back to the lake, and Sam was happy to mimic the action. “Talk to me about background, sidekick.”

Sam made a token glare but he started his recitation anyway. “Well, there's plenty of underwater ghost towns across the world. In America there's submerged towns under the Quabbin reservoir, under Lake Martin in Alabama, Lake Table Rock in Montana... and a lot more towns that are just foundation now.” He paused. “One of the most famous is Livermore, in Pennsylvania. It was flooded by the Army in the fifties and people have claimed they can see the tops of buildings when the water's low. There's been sightings of ghosts, red lights over the water, reports of howling noises. Standard haunting stuff.”

“Anyone ever check it out?” Dean said.

Sam shrugged. “It's not in Dad's journal. I emailed Bobby and he says he doesn't know if it's ever been dealt with. There's a lot of reports of weird stuff from Livermore but no deaths, I don't think. It's not exactly a priority.”

“So we haven't got a handle on what we've got here,” Dean concluded.

“No,” Sam said. “If the deaths are to do with the lake, even though they're so far away from it... it's new.”

“We're brave pioneers,” Dean said. He pushed himself off the barrier with a groan. He looked faded against the grey skies as he headed back towards the car, tired and insubstantial; Sam averted his eyes.

When they got back to the motel, Sam organised his notes and faced the fact that they weren't much further forward now than they'd been that morning. He settled in with the reports of the other deaths, trying to identify which was more important to check out next. Dean sacked out in front of the soaps and ordered in pizza when he got hungry.

* * *

Andrea found them at their motel the next morning. It hadn't been a great night; Dean had yelled in his sleep and yet denied he'd been having bad dreams when Sam woke him gently. He claimed not to remember it in the morning, when Sam broached the subject as subtly as he could, but he was jumpy and snappish until he looked out the window, doing his usual paranoid checks to make sure the car was still there, and saw her. Sam only realised when Dean raced out of the door, and he himself stopped to pull on shoes and a shirt before following him out.

They were standing next to the Impala and Dean was hugging Andrea exuberantly. Sam hung back for a second, feeling strangely like he'd be interrupting something, even though it was a woman Dean had known for a week nearly four years ago, and had never evinced any particular memories of since. But he was touching her, still, although he'd released her from the hug, and giving her the soft, real smile Sam saw only rarely, so Sam waited.

She was the one who turned to him and said, “Hi, Sam.”

“Hi,” he said, lamely. He offered her his hand and then thought belatedly how stiff and unfriendly he looked, after Dean's enthusiastic greeting, so he bent and kissed her cheek.

“Oh, hey, I should probably get dressed,” Dean said, turning back towards their door. He hesitated, turned back and asked, “You coming in?”

Andrea ummed for a second, looking between them. She looked pretty and business-like, petite in grey trousers and heels with a simple green sweater under her coat.

“Or do you have to get to work?” Sam intervened. Dean looked surprised at the notion.

“No, I have the morning,” Andrea said decisively. She smiled, “I guess you haven't eaten breakfast yet?”

Half an hour later they were comfortably ensconced in a diner that Andrea promised did the best pancakes in Wisconsin.

“So how'd you find us?” Dean said. He was on his second cup of coffee and his best behaviour, none of the slurping and messing around he usually did to occupy himself and annoy Sam.

“Christine Loviss called me. The way she described you two, the questions she said you asked... I thought it must be. So I called around a few motels asking about the car, and here I am.” Her expression turned serious. “It's happening again, isn't it? Alan, the Mayalls, the others. It's like – it's like Chris and my father.”

Dean and Sam exchanged glances across the table and Sam leaned forward and caught her gaze. “It's possible,” he said gently. “Not exactly the same. But yeah, we think maybe it's a haunting.”

Andrea had to visibly nerve herself but she nodded and pulled a folder out of her bag. “I thought it might be. I've been collecting some of the stories, asking around... we're sort of a community, everyone who lived in Lake Manitoc.”

Sam took the folder and flipped through it, then went back to the beginning and started reading more closely. She'd done good, thorough work: several newspaper articles for each death, all the local papers dated and filed, combined with pages of her own handwritten or typed notes, marked neatly as gossip or interview or background.

“How's Lucas?” he heard Dean say eagerly while he concentrated on her folder and he tried to lean back a little further, give them some space. It was actually weird, thinking of Dean having personal connections that didn't involve Sam, but he deserved them.

“He's okay,” Andrea said but Sam could hear a tiny withdrawal in her voice and from the corner of her eye he could see Dean catch it, see the worry that crossed his face. “I mean, he's nearly thirteen now, it's a difficult age. But we're okay.”

“Sure,” Dean said softly.

“Andrea, this is excellent stuff,” Sam said into the pause. “This sort of detail, it's exactly what we need for a pattern with this many people and we never could have got it on our own.”

She composed herself and smiled at him. “Thank you. It's really weird, you know?” She gave a little embarrassed laugh, “Well, you do. But asking them, knowing if I told them what I thought they'd think I was going crazy. I don't even know what I was going to do with it, really. I can't find any way to predict who's next.”

“You never know what's going to turn out to be useful,” Dean said reassuringly. He held out his hand for the file and Sam passed it over.

Their food came, the pancakes as excellent as advertised. Dean stuck with his best table manners throughout the meal. Andrea picked at her salad and Sam watched her covertly. He was pretty sure it wasn't just imagination that made him think she looked more stressed now than she had when she'd found them that morning, but there were signs of more long-term pressures as well, shadows under her eyes skillfully disguised with makeup and a peculiarly rigid way of holding herself. He felt bad for her. She and Lucas had already been targeted by one spirit, and it looked like she'd noticed the indications of another pretty early on. She'd had months, at least, of tracking this one, worrying about whether it had plans for her family, and she hadn't known what to do or how to solve it. Sam never usually had to stick around to see the effects on people of being exposed to the world that was so normal to him and Dean, past the first flush of gratitude. It wasn't a lovely picture.

“I have to get to work,” Andrea excused herself when they were done eating. She looked at them for a moment and then seemed to come to a decision. “Do you want to come for dinner tonight?” she said.

“Andrea, if you don't want to be involved any more, you don't have to,” Sam said quickly, before Dean could answer. “You've done more than enough, we can take it from here.”

She looked appreciative but she said, “No, thanks, Sam. I want to know it's gone, whatever it turns out to be.”

Sam nodded and Dean said, “We'd love to come for dinner.”

“I live in Francis Creek now, just north of here,” she said, taking out a pad and scribbling down her address for them. “Say, six thirty?”

“Sure,” Dean said. He got out of the booth to let her out then hovered awkwardly.

“Bye, Andrea,” Sam said, more loudly than he meant to.

“I'll see you later,” she said, and left.

Dean sat down and sighed heavily. Then he called the waitress over and ordered another stack of pancakes.

* * *

Sam had been thinking all day about how to bring it up, when he hadn't been going carefully through Andrea's notes. Eventually they were in the car and he had to say it, whether Dean wanted to hear it or not.

“Dean, you know... Lucas was pretty young when we last saw him,” he started.

“So?” Dean said briefly. He turned the music up.

Sam turned it down again. “So we were around for a few days, years ago, doing something he probably doesn't like thinking about.”

“Do you have a point?” Dean said irritably. He'd showered again and shaved carefully and put on an overshirt that was clean and barely creased, which Sam had an idea might in Dean's brain be classed as 'for best', and he'd gone so far as to stop for a large if slightly wilted-looking bunch of flowers. Sam was wearing what he'd been wearing all day.

“Just that you shouldn't be too disappointed if he doesn't remember you,” Sam said, and concentrated very hard on the scenery going past outside his window.

Dean turned up the music.

The house wasn't large but it looked modern and comfortable, with a well-tended front yard, in a perfectly normal suburban neighbourhood with stores and trees and even a couple of kids playing out under their mothers' watchful eyes.

Andrea greeted them at the door, in jeans and bare feet and a cute floral apron, seemingly a little nervous. She accepted the flowers with what looked like surprised but genuine pleasure and drew them inside. Sam couldn't help running an observant eye over everything. It was the same hunter's scrutiny even the years of college had failed to break him of: looking for exits and potential weapons and anything else of interest, noticing everything that helped him categorise and deal with witnesses.

The house was maybe a little shabby around the edges but well-kept and homely. There was the definite evidence of an adolescent boy, and a few well-chosen knick-knacks and framed photos. He could smell cooking, some sort of roasting meat. It was all very domestic. He looked at Dean out of the corner of his eye but his brother looked the way he always did in the nice normal homes of nice normal people he liked, brazening out the feeling that he was out of place there.

She led them into a den. The TV was on, playing some reality show with people Sam didn't recognise, and Lucas was slumped on the sofa. He'd changed plenty, but Sam could still see the young boy he vaguely remembered in him: the hair was much shorter but perceptibly reddish and the last vestiges of baby roundness were still at his cheeks and jawline.

His face was settled into what looked like a permanent sulk but he brightened when he saw them.

“Hi, Lucas,” Dean said. He was ahead of Sam and Sam couldn't see the expression on his brother's face but he could hear his tone, careless to anyone else but to Sam running with nearly-imperceptible tension and hope.

“Hi, man,” Lucas said. “Zeppelin rules, right?” He looked as hopeful as Dean sounded.

“That's exactly right,” Dean said and moved forward, letting Sam into the room and he could see Dean's face, wreathed with a big real grin, looking happy and whole.

Sam looked at Andrea; she was perched on the arm of a chair in the corner, watching them with a gentle, relieved smile.

“Can I do anything?” he offered quietly. Dean had gone to sit next to Lucas and they were already involved in a discussion about Lucas' favourite bands.

“No, thank you, everything's fine,” she said. “It'll be about fifteen minutes.”

“It smells great,” Sam said and she thanked him again and slid out to the kitchen.

He watched Dean and Lucas for a while. They didn't seem inclined to include him; Dean knew and despised his musical taste already and Lucas had a definite light of hero-worship in his eyes, which were clearly only for Dean for tonight.

Sam snagged the TV remote from the floor and flipped through until he found a news channel.

Dinner was as good as it smelled: roasted chicken with lemon, potatoes tasting of rosemary and sea salt, carrots and steamed green beans piled high on the side. Simple food, the sort of thing both Dean and Jess had once cooked for Sam. They both took second helpings. Lucas chattered all through dinner, telling Dean about school and the baseball league he was in. Andrea's gaze rested on her son, calm and pleased, and Sam concentrated on eating steadily and accepted a second beer when she asked him.

There was apple pie for dessert, filling and sweet, and then after dinner Sam insisted on helping to clear plates and wash up. Dean got up to help too, just a beat behind, but Sam and Andrea insisted that he sit a while longer with Lucas, and between the two of them and Lucas' hopeful gaze he agreed, and let Lucas plug in his Playstation.

“I'm glad they still get on,” Andrea ventured. She'd cleaned up and Sam was drying the last of the dishes, putting them on the counter for her to put away. She busied herself with the coffeemaker. “I haven't been dating much, and with my dad gone, I worry he's not getting a – a male role model.” She rolled her eyes at herself and smiled at Sam wryly.

“He seems like a good kid,” Sam said.

“He can be moody,” Andrea admitted. “Goes silent again, sometimes, just for a day or two.”

“It's normal, if he was... affected, by what happened to you guys,” Sam said. He felt awkward, again. He'd been able to form friendships once, he was sure of it.

She shrugged. “There's a lot of pressures on kids today. I don't like to think of myself as old, but it's still changed a lot.”

“I'll take your word on it,” Sam said, smiling as best he could.

She smiled back and then it slipped away and she looked serious. “Sam. I wasn't sure if I should mention it, but – the FBI came to see me a couple of years ago, asking about you two.”

“Oh,” Sam said. He schooled his expression into neutrality.

“Of course, I knew you couldn't have done the things they said,” she said hastily. “Not with the way you and Dean helped us. I told them that.”

“Thanks,” he said. “It's okay, Andrea. We knew about that. We came to an understanding with them, sort of. I think we're technically still wanted on a few things.” He felt a sort of confused meanness as he said it; of course she would have to know, if Dean wanted... but she probably didn't need to be told already, and anyway it wasn't like he was inclined to put her interests over Dean's.

“I guess it's an occupational hazard,” she said, a forced lightness in her tone.

He matched it. “'Fraid so.”

“I should see if they need anything,” she said and led him back into the den. Dean and Lucas were both sitting on the floor, backs to the sofa, playing some sort of driving game. It looked like Dean was losing badly. Sam wasn't surprised. They'd never much gotten used to computer games.

Sam and Andrea watched them for a while, the exclamations and shouts from Dean and Lucas as they argued and celebrated their game covering any awkwardness. Eventually Andrea murmured 'school tomorrow' to Lucas. He looked defiant for a moment and she got up pointedly and went to the door. Lucas looked at Dean, who looked uncertain, probably thinking he should tell the kid to mind his mom but not sure whether it was his place, and after a moment Lucas followed her reluctantly out the door.

“God,” Dean said as soon as they were out the door. He levered himself up to the sofa, one hand pressing against his lower back. “This sitting on the floor thing isn't working out.”

“Getting old,” Sam teased gently. Dean was good entertainment on the subject of his advancing age, but since the thirtieth birthday that had been so unwelcome to him and the sweetest of Sam's life, a day he'd thought he was going to have to mourn for both Jessica and Dean, he'd pretty much lost the heart to mock him seriously about it.

Lucas came back in, his gaze fixed firmly again on Dean. “I'm gonna see you again, right?” he said timidly. Dean looked at Sam over his head and Sam shrugged helplessly; Dean didn't like lying to kids.

“Yeah, I hope so,” Dean said. “We'll see with your mom, okay? Get to bed.”

“Okay,” Lucas said. “Night, Dean. Night, Sam,” he added belatedly, remembering Sam was there too. He lingered for a second and then thrust his hand out to Dean, who shook it with all seriousness.

“Sleep well,” he said and Lucas grinned happily, almost a little boy again, and headed to bed.

Andrea came back down about fifteen minutes later and Dean immediately said, “You must be proud. He's doing so well,” his face open and honest in a way he'd barely been with Sam since they were kids themselves.

Her expression relaxed instantly and she said, “Thank you,” sounding almost shy. “I did hope – you were so good with him, back then.”

They smiled at each other for a minute and then Sam cleared his throat. “If you're waiting to get to bed yourself...”

“Oh,” she said, looking surprised and a little disappointed. She sat down next to Dean and looked between them. “I thought maybe, if you'd looked at my file, you might have found something?”

Dean looked at Sam expectantly.

“Well, there is something, actually,” Sam said, trying not to feel gratified.

“File's in the car, we didn't know how much Lucas knew,” Dean cut in brightly. He pulled the car keys out of his pocket and threw them to Sam. “Why don't you go get it, Sammy? Give us all the juicy details.”

Sam caught the keys and the hint. “Sure,” he said quietly, and he lingered in the car for fifteen minutes before he was cold and resentful enough to go back in.

He could hear them talking indistinctly when he went back into the house and he made sure to make noise, only partly to warn them he was back.

“Took your time,” Dean said when he re-entered the den but he was smiling and a little flushed, although Sam was pretty sure they hadn't just jumped apart or anything. Sam glared at him and smiled weakly at Andrea.

“I went through your research,” he said, focusing on Andrea. “There's one thing that I noticed, something Mrs. Loviss said to us. She mentioned her husband had a family plot but she implied it wasn't in the main cemetery. According to a couple of your interviews some of the other victims also knew of a family plot.”

“Okay,” Andrea said. Sam offered her the file back and she opened it to the written-up conversations he'd marked and skimmed over them, her head bent in concentration.

Sam mouthed 'well?' at Dean over her head and he smirked back at Sam and raised his eyebrows in an exaggerated 'what?'.

“Well, these are accurate,” Andrea said uncertainly. She looked at Dean, then questioningly at Sam.

“Andrea, how much preparation was there for the town being...” he trailed off, wondering how sensitive he was supposed to be. Since the town was lost? Flooded? Destroyed?

“For the dam,” she supplied. He noted the euphemism. “It took a little longer than expected, everyone had moved out a while before with all their things and pets. There weren't any deaths, if that's what you mean.”

“What about the buildings, were they destroyed?” Sam asked. Dean was watching them attentively, letting Sam talk out his theory.

“No, they were left,” she said. “There wasn't time to take any buildings apart for restoration somewhere else and nothing was demolished. I guess they thought it was too expensive, when the lake would take it all anyway.”

He looked at Dean but spoke still to her. “What about the cemeteries?”

“They exhumed the main town cemetery,” she said quietly. “I had a stone for Chris, it was moved to the town cemetery here. I wanted Lucas to have somewhere he could visit.”

Dean patted her hand tentatively and looked straight at Sam. “You think they forgot one?”

“It's possible,” Sam said. “They all talk about maybe there was a family plot, they think they had a plot somewhere. If they'd had to arrange to have bodies moved, they'd remember.”

“How could that happen?” Andrea said. She sounded distressed, and Sam reminded himself that not only was she not used to this the way he and Dean were, the one time she'd come across something similar, it had left her without her husband's and father's bodies to bury.

“It's just a theory,” Sam said. “We need more information about those plots, if you think you can get it from your friends. But maybe if it wasn't in town, if it wasn't used – things get overlooked. Everyone assumes someone else will deal with it.”

“Dozens of vengeful spirits,” Dean said grimly. “Good luck salting and burning those under water.”

Andrea sighed and shut her eyes for a moment and Dean looked at her anxiously, asking, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, summoning up a weak smile. “I guess I hoped it'd be easy to solve, you know?”

“It will be,” Dean said reassuringly. “We're good at this, Andrea. It'll be fine.”

She nodded and stood up briskly. “I'll make some calls tomorrow,” she said.

Sam stood up after her and then Dean. “Thanks,” he said.

“So we'll see you tomorrow?” Dean said hopefully.

“Yeah, of course,” she said. Sam didn't see there was any of course about it but he held his tongue while she saw them out and Dean told her again, very sweetly, how much he'd enjoyed the food and how much he thought of Lucas and what a lovely evening he'd had. Sam stood and smiled, itching for the passenger seat.

“What's with you?” Dean said disapprovingly, once they were in the car. “You're supposed to be good with people.”

“This case is getting to me,” Sam said. He felt bad if he'd been rude to Andrea; it wasn't her fault she was beautiful and smart and and a great mom, and Dean liked her. But he wasn't ready to talk about what was the matter with him, hadn't even decided if he had the right. He could feel Dean watching him but he didn't look over.

* * *

Sam was only a little surprised the next morning when Dean drove them back out to the same overlook. It was a clearer, colder day, the lake still and reflecting a pale sky, cloud cover shining with the sun behind it. Dean picked up stones and cast them contemplatively into the lake. Sam leaned over the barrier and stared into the depths, fancying he could make out roofs and streetlamps. It was somehow different, now Andrea had told him the city was untouched down there. He wondered how much damage there was now. It had been slow, water creeping up the walls and into the buildings; might they be intact or would the pressure have caved them in? It felt morbid, especially thinking that Andrea's house was underneath, even a motel where he himself had stayed, but he couldn't help his imagination throwing up dark seaweed-strewn depths, like video footage he'd seen of shipwrecks.

“You're pretty sure about the boneyard thing,” Dean said eventually, not quite a question.

“I haven't come up with anything else,” Sam said. “It makes things difficult if it is.”

“Shame it's freshwater,” Dean said. “You think that'd work? If we got a huge pile, really huge, of salt, and put it in the lake?”

“Er, no,” Sam said.

“Yeah!” Dean said, ignoring him in favour of getting enthused about his idea. “It'd be like, what's that alternative crap? Homeopathy.”

“No it wouldn't,” Sam said.

“Okay, what if we did the holy water thing?” Dean went on, undeterred. “A lake of holy water! We could come by and stock up every few months.”

Sam smiled but said, “No, I think we're gonna need a bigger boat on this one.”

“A boat?” Dean said doubtfully.

Sam stared at him, a familiar bittersweet sadness hitting. Even now, he kept finding things- “It's from 'Jaws', Dean. You don't remember?”

“No,” Dean said, like it didn't mean anything to him. Sam had been seven when Dean had taken him to a showing of 'Jaws'; he'd refused to bathe for a week after.

“I'll put it on the list,” Sam muttered. Dean didn't give any sign he'd heard, but he went back to the car, switching on the tape player and turning it up loud as he waited for Sam. Sam looked over the water for another moment and then went to get in the car.

They went back to the motel and Dean started washing the car in the lot, slow and methodical. The music was still on but his lips were moving out of time with it. Sam sat at the window, ostensibly researching on the laptop, but really he watched Dean and wondered what he was saying to himself, when he thought nobody could tell.

Andrea called mid-afternoon and Dean came in, sweaty and smiling, and reported she'd asked them to meet her and Lucas at the park.

“It's the middle of winter,” Sam said.

“It's good for kids to stretch their legs,” Dean said contentedly.

“Who made you the expert?” Sam said. He'd actually gotten into his research when Dean's brow had unfurrowed out there and his mouth was falling into banter more or less without the intervention of his brain.

“You turned out okay,” Dean said cheerfully.

Sam grimaced. He had, but their dad's idea of 'stretching their legs' had been an eight minute mile.

Dean disappeared into the bathroom to preen some time before they were expected. Sam sighed and shut the computer down. What was the point of looking for their next case when Dean might decide this was their last?

The park was almost empty, so late in the year; only one man walked his dog around the edge, wrapped up in scarf and gloves. Sam huddled into his jacket and stuffed his hands in the pockets. It would be pretty in a few months, when the bushes flowered and the grass came through green and new, but the encroaching twilight made it somewhat sinister.

Andrea and Lucas met them near the kids' play area, a brightly-coloured swing set and slide glowing dimly in the fading light. Lucas was clutching a soccer ball and, once they'd exchanged greetings, Dean didn't need to be asked before drawing him off into a game.

“I spoke to Christine again, and the others you marked,” she said to Sam quietly, watching Dean and Lucas kick the ball about with a fond expression. “You were right about the cemetery. It was attached to an old church, apparently, out to the west when the town grew out in the other direction. The church burnt down about seventy years ago and was never rebuilt.”

“None of them were approached about exhumation?” Sam asked.

“No,” Andrea said. “I spoke to someone else, as well. Paul Green worked in the Mayor's office, he co-ordinated the move, inasmuch as it was organised at all. He didn't have a record of the cemetery or any of the bodies being moved.”

“Abandoned graveyard, with family plots,” Sam said. “And that means abandoned ancestors. Spirits that have been quiet can – well, they don't take that sort of thing well.”

“So what do we do?” Andrea asked.

Sam smiled awkwardly. “We're still working on that.”

He'd dredged up his manners for this meeting, anxious to get on her good side, so he asked about her work – she was an administrator now, in the local hospital, which she described as not particularly variable but interesting enough. He found himself genuinely curious almost despite himself; he'd never quite gotten over a childhood fascination with other people's nine-to-fives and she was an engaging conversationalist.

They managed to carry on the conversation until Dean and Lucas tired themselves out and then when Dean picked up the ball and rested his hand on Lucas' shoulder, Andrea went in to meet them. Sam stood for a moment and watched them, comfortable little circle of three, saw Dean's affectionate smile and Andrea's glow, and felt terribly and guiltily lonely.

It was Lucas who broke away and came over to Sam.

“Hi, Sam,” he said.

“Hi, Lucas,” he said. He made an effort at a smile. “You're pretty good out there. They have soccer at your school?”

“No,” Lucas said. “Dean says you played in high school, is that true? They have a team at the high school here but it's hard to get picked.”

“Yeah, I played,” Sam said. “In college, as well. It's more fun than football.”

“My dad used to take me to football,” Lucas confided. He leaned on the fence next to Sam, clearly trying to look casual and grown-up. “But my mom says soccer's more fun, too.”

“Oh,” Sam said. Shouldn't he know what to say to that sort of thing? He'd never much liked all the 'appropriate' things people said to him when they learned he didn't have a mother, and being pitied by strangers had driven Dean crazy. But of course Lucas' case was different; maybe he talked about it.

“Sam?” Lucas said. He sounded nervous and Sam hoped to God he wasn't going to ask about Andrea and Dean.

“Yeah?” he said, trying to sound jolly and avuncular.

“Dean says you're sort of psychic,” Lucas ventured.

“Does he,” Sam said grimly. Was that the sort of thing twelve-year-old boys thought was cool these days? He didn't know.

“Because my dreams never really went away,” Lucas said candidly. “Don't tell my mom, she wouldn't like it. But I can tell things about people, sometimes.”

“Oh,” Sam said weakly, switching gears mentally. “Is it, how is it? Does it hurt? I used to get really bad headaches.”

“It doesn't hurt,” Lucas said thoughtfully. “It's just weird, you know? It makes me feel weird.”

“You're not weird, Lucas,” Sam said. This wasn't a demonic thing; Lucas' psychic abilities had started from emotional trauma, which made him rare but not unique. It had simply unlocked something in his brain that stayed firmly shut in most people. “I mean, yeah, most people can't do it. But it doesn't make you bad, or wrong, or anything like that. Does it bother you?”

“Sometimes. It's nice to be able to talk about it. I knew Dean would believe me,” Lucas said. “Are you guys gonna stay?”

The goddamn sixty-four thousand dollar question. “I don't know,” he said softly.

“I like it being just me and my mom,” Lucas said. He peered into the darkness, where Dean and Andrea could be made out talking together. “But maybe I could get used to it. If you wanted to.”

“We'll bear that in mind,” Sam said hollowly. He wanted food and bed, in that order, and he wanted Dean complaining about diner food and his whistling breath in the bed next to Sam's.

Lucas said, “Okay,” in an unconcerned tone and came away from the fence.

When he was a couple of steps away, Sam couldn't stop himself calling, “Hey, Lucas.” The kid turned around and Sam had to stop his voice going small like it wanted to when he said, “When you look at Dean, what do you see?”

There was a pause while Lucas thought about it. He looked back at Dean and his mom, then at Sam. “It's like he's a puzzle piece,” he said decisively. “Like with a bit taken out?”

“Right,” Sam said, adding a belated, “thanks.” He was assailed by the memory, suddenly, Dean looking at him with barely anything of his brother there in the gaze, and a reflexive shudder went through him.

“And you just look down all the time,” Lucas announced, unasked. “He's a lot happier about it than you are.”

“Thank you, Lucas,” Sam snapped, and he shrugged and went to join Dean and Andrea. Sam took a minute to pull himself together before he followed.

* * *

The next day was Saturday and Dean woke Sam up early.

“It's the weekend,” Sam complained. He turned over and snuggled back down into his bed.

“It's the farmer's market,” Dean said complacently. He whipped Sam's covers off him, making Sam yell as the cold air bathed him. “Or whatever. Arts and crafts and crap. We're going.”

“What the fuck?” Sam said intelligently. He flopped about, looking for a bit of mattress that was still warm.

“Andrea likes them,” Dean said. “Get in the shower, we've got to be at her place in a half hour.”

Sam stilled. “Okay,” he said quietly. He got off the bed and went into the bathroom, grabbing a towel off the chair. It was damp.

“And put your happy face on!” Dean yelled through the door. “You frighten kids.”

Andrea cooked breakfast for them when they got to her house, piles of hot buttery toast and eggs and bacon. It almost cheered Sam up but he didn't see why he had to be subjected to the farmer's market so he lied that he was working on a promising lead to do with the case; Dean looked like he thought Sam was lying but Andrea seemed hopeful about a quick resolution and so, as Sam had expected, Dean gave in. He even went so far as to let Sam take the car.

“Don't scratch her up,” he warned.

“I won't,” Sam said impatiently. He'd heard that warning ever since Dean was old enough to take a proprietary interest in the Impala, he figured at this point it was probably imprinted on his DNA.

Still, Dean hesitated. “You sure you don't want to come?”

“Positive,” Sam said, making a crafty swipe for the keys. He got them. Dean looked a little disappointed.

He took the laptop to Starbucks and its free wireless. He spent about as much time watching the women who came in as he did looking at the screen. There were pretty ones and tall ones and whip-smart-looking ones, laughing with the baristas or snapping out their order with an authoritative attitude, wearing jeans and sneakers or skirts with boots, wrapped up in soft scarves and hats, dark and pale and all different. He tried to see each one opposite him on his table, the two of them standing together in Andrea's kitchen while Dean burned barbecue outside, but none of it took. It was colourless, vague; the only part of his fantasy that had any clarity was Dean.

It wasn't fair or even practical to take his uneasiness out on the laptop, but he did anyway, jabbing at the keys and slamming the lid down. Then he called Dean.

They met back at Andrea's house. Lucas had evidently had enough family time, muttering something that might have been about homework and escaping upstairs just slowly enough not to be rude.

“I think I have something,” Sam said, after he'd allowed himself to be installed on the sofa with a fresh, hot coffee. “Based on its being the lake, not necessarily the old cemetery, so it should work.”

“Okay,” Dean said. Sam had his full attention, and he let himself bask in it for a few seconds.

“In the fourteenth century there was a lake in Germany that was known to be badly haunted,” Sam explained. “Haunted, drownings, much worse than this one. The archbishop at the time was called Burkhard, he blessed the lake and it stopped all the activity. They call it Holy Lake now.”

There was a short silence and then Andrea tentatively said, “Is that it?”

“Yeah,” Sam said.

“You're the experts,” she said apologetically. “I thought there'd... be more to it.”

“So where are we going to get an archbishop?” Dean said.

“We can do it ourselves,” Sam said, irritated. “It's just a blessing.”

“Just a blessing!” Dean said triumphantly. “Isn't this basically my holy water idea? The one you said wouldn't work?”

“No,” Sam said flatly.

“It is.”

“It isn't.”

Dean smirked at him. “It totally is.”

Sam had to literally bite his tongue, to bite back his instinctive retort. It wasn't going to get them anywhere, and they were in company.

“Well,” Andrea said with a forced brightness. “Tomorrow, then?”

It didn't take anything else to get Dean serious. “Tomorrow,” he agreed. His gaze rested on Sam calmly.

“Tomorrow,” Sam said.

They spent the rest of the afternoon with Andrea and Lucas. Sam helped Lucas with some history homework he brought down while Dean roamed around the house fixing up a crooked picture here and a sticking door there, until Andrea gave up telling him he didn't have to and started pointing out the things she needed doing. But it was Dean who made their apologies after dinner was eaten and the dishes washed, and he and Sam spent the evening mostly quiet and content in a bar, nursing a couple of beers. They didn't need special supplies; it was their practice to carry around rosaries and herbs, and they had several purification rituals that came with Bobby's seal of usefulness. They just needed clear heads.

Sam spent the first part of the evening searching for how to ask Dean what he intended – what he wanted. It wasn't the sort of ritual that showed much in the way of instant results and it would be months, really, before they could say with absolute certainty that it was over. It was the perfect excuse for Dean to stay: a haunting to keep an eye on, a vulnerable family who'd been targeted by spirits before. Sam couldn't bear to bring it up, in the end, couldn't even form the question so it wasn't laying out far too much about what he wanted the answer to be. Instead he did his best to enjoy the evening in the calm spirit he thought Dean was aiming for, dwelling in his brother's company.

* * *

They drove to the lake next day in solemn cavalcade, Dean and Sam following Andrea and Lucas to an area where they could enter the lake without worrying about being seen. It wasn't very close to the supposed site of the cemetery; Sam hoped it wouldn't matter.

They pulled up at a slipway and got out to meet Andrea and Lucas. She looked pale but resolved. Sam wasn't sure how much Lucas had been told about what was going on, but as he watched the kid stare out over the water with a calm expression too adult for his years, Sam was pretty sure he knew anyway.

“You should wait up here,” Dean said, his tone gentle and professional.

“I thought you weren't worried,” Andrea said, with an edge to her voice. She glanced at Lucas.

“Our routine isn't always as routine as we'd like,” Dean said wryly. “We're not worried, Andrea. But that doesn't mean you and Lucas shouldn't take precautions.”

“Okay,” Andrea said. She moved in slightly, pulled back again in confusion, and Dean took her in his arms for a quick hug. Sam looked away.

“It's okay, they're not kissing or anything,” Lucas said reassuringly.

“Thanks for that,” Sam said. He was the cute kid that got stuck up the Empire State Building and he was being called on it by a twelve-year-old; that was just great.

Dean smacked Sam upside the head, nearly playful, but when Sam looked at him his expression was smooth and focused, falling into the hunt. Andrea and Lucas retreated further up past the cars while Sam and Dean grabbed their things from their back seat. Dean had a rosary and holy water, a silver knife strapped to his forearm and a shotgun loaded with salt. Sam had another rosary, more salt and the ritual herbs, muslin bags they picked up by the dozen and had filled for this with a mix for purification laid down in the Key of Solomon. He shook it and then clenched his fist to relieve some tension and let the sweet deep smells briefly fill the air.

Sam thought it kind of ruined the picture that they sat down and took off their shoes and socks. They weren't going deep and shouldn't leave the smooth concreted access point, so he wasn't too worried about the soles of their feet, but he hoped they were at too remote a point for local kids to have taken to throwing in the evidence of underage drinking binges. Sam had changed into sweats; Dean had flatly refused to follow suit, and would be complaining at his damp clinging denim in a little while.

“Okay?” Sam said.

“Okay,” Dean answered and they walked down to the water, side by side, and waded straight in. The water was a cold shock, lapping up against them as they walked in until they were knee-deep. The wind picked up, a stiff fresh breeze ruffling at Sam's hair; he could see it on the surface of the water, starting to foam white in the distance, against a greying sky.

He checked Dean out of the corner of his eye and Dean nodded briefly. The day had been clear and still; this was going to work, if they could beat to the finish line whatever in the lake really wanted it not to.

Sam wrapped the rosary securely around his wrist and dangled the crucifix into the water, the old familiar wood that still bore his teething marks cool and soothing. There was a pull on it from beneath the surface, slight but definite.

The muslin bag was open in his other hand. He shook the herbs out, clumsily. The wind caught some of them but most of them landed safely in the water, spreading out quickly around he and Dean. He leaned down awkwardly and upended the packet of salt, pouring it around them with the herbs in a rough line.

He started reciting the Lord's Prayer, loud and confident, getting to the end and immediately starting again with Our Father as the wind blew and started to tear the words away. Waves were starting to run steadily through the lake.

There was another tug on Sam's rosary, heavy and menacing, and he shifted his stance wider, trying to stabilise himself. Then Dean was at his back, bracing against him, one hand on Sam's shoulder pulling him around so they could both see out over the lake, the waves starting to form high and raging in the centre of the lake and rush in towards them.

Sam said a quick Glory Be and then started the Gloria in Excelsis Deo, having to yell now. The lake was spraying up, the wind whipping around them, and there was a constant pressure on his wrist from the immersed rosary. As he finished the Gloria he heard Dean fire but he couldn't look around to see what his brother was aiming at, just pressed back frantically against the steady presence at his shoulder and yelled out another Our Father. He leaned back against the force on his wrist and started the Song of Simeon, the passages drilled into him by Pastor Jim coming back accurate and necessary, concentrating desperately on thoughts of purity and safety.

He could hear church bells, distant and rusting, as he finished another Gloria and then abruptly the force on his wrist was gone and before he could stop the stumble his legs were taken out from under him and he was spluttering and falling in water that was suddenly so much deeper, the water was rising up through him, inexorable and inescapable, he was drowning and lost and forgotten-

He gasped in a desperate breath and it was air. He was lying on the slipway, still in the raging water up to his waist, wind and spray half-choking him. Dean was kneeling up next to him and he tore the rosary from Sam's wrist and threw it as Sam croaked out the last words of his prayer.

Sam's ears roared and a wave reached for them, broke over them as he clutched blindly at Dean, crouched protectively over his body. There was a moment of dead silence under the water and when the wave receded it went back into a quiet calm lake, sky already showing blue again as the storm clouds melted away.

“Sam, Sammy,” Dean was saying, raggedly, still bent over him, hand on his chest to measure pulse and breathing.

“I'm fine, Dean,” Sam said. He slapped Dean's hands away.

“You went under,” Dean said anxiously. Sam sat up and Dean got under his arm and staggered them both to a stand. Sam was soaked and tired. His throat felt raw.

“I'm okay,” he said. “You think it worked?”

“I don't care, we're not fucking trying it again,” Dean said fervently. “You look like shit. And I think water got in the shotgun, that's gonna be a bitch to clean.”

He just wanted to stay there for a minute, rest on his brother, but Andrea was rushing down to them, concerned. Sam was too exhausted to bother feeling ashamed when he realised he'd wished she'd be frightened – too frightened to deal with it.

He shook Dean's arm off his shoulders and stepped back, but Dean followed him, away from Andrea's approach, and steadied him when he would have swayed.

“Are you okay?” she blurted when she reached them. “God, it looked terrible. Are you-”

“We're fine,” Dean said. His smile was genuine but Sam caught the thin hint of bravado as he said, “All in a day's work.”

“You mean – it's over? It worked?” she said. She looked between them, cautiously hopeful.

“We think so,” Dean said. “If you could keep an eye on it, that'd be great. We'll keep in touch in case it comes up again, but yeah, I think you're done.”

Sam was too fogged to catch it immediately but as soon as he did, he said, “Dean-” and then didn't know what he'd been going to say. He still didn't know how to ask Dean if he wanted to walk away.

“Thank you,” Andrea said. “Both of you. Again.”

“No problem,” Dean said.

“If you'll come back to clean up... and then, one last homecooked meal?”

“That'd be great,” Dean said. He grinned at her, affectionate and happy, and shifted almost imperceptibly to take more of Sam's weight.

She headed back up to the cars. Lucas was in theirs, small but unbowed. He waved at Sam and Andrea climbed in, made a follow-on motion at Dean, and drove off.

“You don't have to stay with me ,” Sam said finally, helplessly.

“Sammy,” Dean said, rough and present. “You know, you miss whatever bit of me's down there a lot more than I do.”

“Only because you don't even know what you lost,” Sam said, confused and tired and wanting nothing more than Dean safe and happy, knowing in his heart that meant away from **him**. “It was wrong, Dean. You shouldn't forgive me.”

Dean watched him for a minute, inscrutable and quiet, then said, “Okay.” He bore Sam gently down to sit on the slipway, then headed to the car. Sam closed his eyes and dropped his head down between his knees. He'd never said it before, never acknowledged that part of Dean was gone. It felt good to have said it, to recognise how badly he'd changed things, but he wasn't sure he could listen to Dean drive away from him.

“I don't know why you keep this, but it's going,” Dean announced. He was handling the bottle casually – just a simple water bottle, washed out and sterilised and stained with remnants of Dean's blood and Sam's tears. Sam kept it because he was superstitiously, guiltily, afraid that a tiny part of Dean's soul might still be in there, untouchable and light as it had been.

“Home sweet home,” Dean said. Then he did an exaggerated wind-up, and threw the bottle into the lake.

“You shouldn't have done that,” Sam said, brought to his feet too late to protest. He watched it bob and sink, almost ready to plunge in and get it until his legs trembled at having to stand.

“Yeah, whatever,” Dean said. He brushed his hands off briskly. “You should've done exactly what you did, which was save my ass. So I'm here, you're here, we're fine.” He caught Sam's eye and smiled, simple and happy, moved over and draped Sam's arm back over his shoulder. “We're sticking it out. Okay?”

“Okay,” Sam said. He let himself lean on his brother, whole and warm under his hands. “Okay.”

 

* * * END * * *


End file.
